Figuring out life while deep in the woods

#livelikepaul

Hi friends!

As anticipated, camp is wonderful! The co-workers are awesome, the programs are great and middle school is still the perfect age to teach.

It has surprised me how easy it’s been to fall back into the camp life routine and the tons of nature facts that I have remembered. What I did not anticipate is how much I wish my friend and former boss, Paul Coakley, was working with me every day. Now don’t get me wrong, my current bosses are fantastic! I simply find myself yearning to tell him about my students and to ask advice about day hikes and plants and games and things to entertain my kids. I want to share with him some of the games and activities I have learned here because I know Paul would have loved them.

Recently, I taught a class I had recently developed for the first time. (The whole thing came to me in the shower,fun fact) and I was pretty unsure of how it would be received by the kiddos. The class is about storytelling and I use Rory’s Story Cubes as my main teaching material. PAul introduced me to the cubes in Wisconsin and after purchasing two sets for myself, I had been pondering how to use them in a class. Anyway, as I’m about halfway through the class and the kiddos are practicing their stories for the group, I’m sitting at the edge of the stage wondering if this is actually coming together as perfectly as I had hoped. (It was.) I looked down and right where my foot had been almost the entire class was a small white feather. In camp tradition in Wisconsin, the feather means you are on the right path. I took it to mean that a certain red bearded man was looking down and letting me know that I made the right decisions with the class 😊

There have been countless other times I know I have felt Paul’s presence or swore I heard his laugh further down the path and what I truly wouldn’t give for a 10 minute phone call or one more warm fuzzy note in my mailbox from him. I know the one way to keep his memory alive though is to #livelikepaul. Doing crazy things, being adventurous, facing each part of my day with a smile and above all, living as Christ for others.